During the course of a novelty search conducted in the Office of Patents and Trademark files, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,623,339; 3,678,707; 3,747,367; 3,753,625 and 3,745,411 were noted in the Examiner's files Class 64 subclass 11 B, plus one U.S. Pat. No. 3,232,076, in the search room files Class 403 subclass 50, all dealing with universals for drive shafts and the like that employed bellows type fittings for such.
In addition, in the Examiner's files Class 64 subclass 1 S, there were found U.S. Pat. No. 3,553,978 and two publications, "Advanced Fiber-Resin Composites", MACHINE DESIGN, Apr. 1, 1971, pp. 1-10, and "Boron and Carbon Fibre Drive Shafts", REINFORCED PLASTICS, February, 1975, p. 64, that show those skilled in the art have contemplated composite or laminated ply type construction for drive shafts, and in doing such, there is the expressed intent to provide such with end fittings that will allow the attachment of universals to the shaft. The well meaning intent is to allow such shafts to be used between known universal connections at the transmission and the driven member spaced therefrom to bring cost and weight savings without requiring extensive development and qualification of the critical universals. Fact of the matter is the intent was to provide a shaft that was stiffer than the metal shaft of today. Flexibility was not tolerated in the shaft length, but was to be provided by attachments thereto. As best summed up, these prior art attempts at composite shafting were to only provide, as stated by the objects of U.S. Pat. No. 3,553,978, column 1, lines 31 and 32, "a...shaft adapted to be mounted between universal joints..." and not to provide a shaft that itself in its own length had the universal's function.